Inconsistency between Discourse and Action in Iran’s Foreign Policy: Examples of Chechenia and Nagorno Karabakh

Although Iran’s foreign policy is influenced by numerous factors, its general framework was set by Khomeini after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Even though the Presidents or the Religious Leader have changed, the conception of the political order based on the Shia remains. In this study, in the light of political culture-foreign policy relations it is discussed whether the foreign policy applied after Khomeini coincided with the discourse that was put into circulation after the Revolution. The main argument here is that the main paradigms of the Shia Islamist political order built with the Revolution remained the same, but because of systemic and political changes, the Iranian decision-makers considered national interests more than ideological or cultural interests. In order to embody this claim, the policies of Iran during the Chechen and Nagorno-Karabakh wars that took place during the Rafsanjani and Khatami rulership will be elaborated